I did Gentoo in my 20s when all I could afford was garbage computers. I enjoyed the experience — whether it did or not, it made me feel like I was getting the most out of whatever I had, and I learned SO much about Linux.
Sadly, it’s Systemd or Openrc only.
Edit: though there was a s6 custom repo i think, last i looked?
Agreed. I blew up. Multiple Gentoo installs, but by the time I stopped using it, I could recover from any of my mistakes. I still miss portage but I actually use my linux machines now instead them being the project themselves :p. I’m a boring Debian boy now…
I run my Gentoo like a Debian by now. All stable (except Firefox) and conservative compiler flags.
Binary packages also look kinda interesting.
Sometimes I want to tinker and I unmask some packages.
Run a Gentoo Prefix maybe? You get portage and can install customized packages like one does, without risking the system.
Interesting. Why not use systemd-nspawn? From what I understand, the kernel is shared anyway.
I don’t think a Gentoo Prefix is anything but an environment directly on the host, it’s not containerized in any way. For me its for a system where the package manager is a bit outdated or I need to patch it, then installing with portage by a Gentoo Prefix helps me do that.
I wanted to try Gentoo to learn more about Linux and compiling.
But that fucking distro just works, and compiling is so automatic I’m done in one command!
I feel betrayed, but also very satisfied by the distro.
Fuck binary blobs.
“Yes, but after you do, it’ll be blazing fast in the twenty minutes before you’ll have to recompile due to software updates.”
“So, you’re saying that it would have been really efficient if all my eight cores weren’t constantly pegged building software?”
“…Uh, yes.”
“And that optimizing software for the native architecture could have enabled power savings, if those machines weren’t all burning oceans of kilowatt hours building the same software over and over again redundantly?”
“Ah…”
I wonder what CPU performance you would need so that it is compiling all the time given: average package release rate and average compile time of the most commonly installed ones.
Well, it’d be highly contingent on what set of packages one has installed, but it’s an interesting question.
Some non-Gentoo distros ship CPU-optimized builds anyway, so even that is quite questionable.
Blazing fast, as in, a full 1 to 3% faster than a generic build.
The beauty is that you never fully install the Gentoo you want. It’s about the journey and the friends we make along the way, not the destination.
How does one install friends (i want to compile them first)
emergefrom your parents’ basement(challenge level: impossible)
Friends are a bloatware.
Firends
Reminder: you can say shit on the Internet.
Or it is about the friends you loose after you have successfully installed Gentoo and now maintaining it.
Fun aside: I used Gentoo for more than a decade (15 years?, idk). Since I am back on Debian stable, I don’t feel like I am missing out on stuff I want to try, because I don’t have to wait or solve useflag issues anymore. I still think, Gentoo is a solid distro, but I have other hobbies, too. If it were my sole job to maintain a Gentoo system I would do it. But I don’t want to deal with it anymore in my spare time.
I have Gentoo, it just works, compiling is pretty quick
I’m confused. I also have many hobbies. That’s what compile time is for–big compiles are started just before bed time. Gentoo stays out of your way and gives you more freedom. I concede that I may just be lucky at not having any useflag issues in many years. But I also learned a lot from the first few I stumbled into. It’s this quality of learning I can’t find in any other distro.
I love all non-windows OS tho
Don’t forget about the anger and rage you develop too.
Why does this image have a picture of Techmoan on it? I’m sure he’d love to know he’s become a meme posterboy
Aha I did a double take for the same reason. Not just techmoan but a really old photo of him too.
Love him but Tech Tangents would be more appropriate here lol. That dude loves wasting time.
Sorry, everytime I see the gentoo logo, I see this:
Who’s that pokemon!
From Subnautica?
That’s an optimistic timeframe if you want to use kde and firefox.
Gentoo has had an official binary repo for a little while now. Makes installing desktops and browsers pretty painless if you don’t need to tweak the default use flags. Just be sure nothing requires qtwebengine and you’re good to go (or mask it to prevent it being pulled in).
I’m guessing this guy is still performing the demonstration tutorial that he started in 1999
I don’t know why you got downvoted. This project has been my default go to for installing Gentoo for a while now.
oh lol. so I installed Gentoo in 2007 or so on an AMD K6. I set the architecture to 686. Cause it’s a K6 right?
build failed after a day of compiling. tried again and the build failed again. finally I read the docs and there’s an innocuous like saying all K6s are 586.
What a waste. switched to Debian after some 3y of Gentoo. switched to arch after 10y of Debian. been on arch 6y now…
Is that Techmoan?
I can do an evening
